Team Phantom: Youths of the Ghost Zone
by Eidorian999
Summary: Danny almost gets killed after a consecutive streak of ghost attacks. While he's recovering, Sam and Tucker come up with a way to help fight the ever growing supernatural threat. Will it work? Or will they fail nonetheless?
1. Chapter 1

**I should be working on Return of Phantom or something. But this idea was just too good to pass up.**

**I've seen a number of fics involving Danny making public appearances. Believe it or not, one such was partially what inspired this fic. Although, the public appearance won't be until later. Much later.**  
**It's kinda hard to believe, but I pulled this together in a single day. Can I just ask if that's fast or not? I don't really know how often most people update, or how quickly they write chapters, so I just thought I'd ask.**

**Anyway. As the summary said, Danny almost gets killed by a ghost attack. That's shown straight away here. So you don't have to wonder exactly what set this chain of event into motion.**

**I've seen a number of fics where Sam has somehow become a halfa. This also partially contributed to this fic.**

**I don't think you can expect updates to be terribly frequent on this one, cos from my POV it's got some serious potential. This chapter might be a little rushed, but future ones I plan to spend more time on, and actually bring them out as reasonably good quality writing.**

**And incidentally...**

**I get the impression from a variety of things that words and phrases such as God, for Christ's sake, etc, are considered as swearing by a large number of people, particularly, (Please don't think I'm stereotyping, I'm just saying what the situation appears to be) people who live in America. And, of course, Christians, and other such.**

**Just so you know, where I live such phrases are perfectly acceptable for use in place of swearing, as they aren't really considered offensive. If anyone is offended by the idea of my using such words, I suggest you don't read this fic. Don't bother flaming me if you've got a problem with it. Either don't read, or get over it.**

**Right. Now, for the disclaimer.**

**Question: do you own Danny Phantom? Unless you're Butch Hartman, my answer is the same as yours.  
**

* * *

"Skulker, when I catch you, you're going to be stuck in this thermos for at least a week before I let you out!" Danny yelled.

It was Saturday morning. Usually Danny would be reasonably happy that it was the weekend, but not today. Because Skulker wasn't the first ghost to show up today so far. He was in fact the fifth, the others being the Box Ghost, Ember (Who had decided simply to come straight at him for a change, instead of hanging around to brainwash people) Desiree and Technus. Needless to say, He was becoming quite fed up.

Not to mention exhausted. This many ghost attack so early never boded well.

Danny ducked a shot from one of Skulker's cannons, returning fire with a hail of ecto blasts. About half of them hit, taking out most of the cannons Skulker had activated. The few that were left were suddenly tucked away.

"Huh?" Danny said in bewilderment. He tensed his muscles as he noticed Skulker was grinning. "Why do I get the feeling I'm about to be hit with something really, really painful?"

"Because you are, whelp!" Without warning, turret-like constructions popped out of the ground below them, as well as out of several of the nearby buildings. Guess where they were aiming.

Before the turrets could open fire, Danny threw everything he had left into an ecto shield, desperately trying to prevent the injuries he just knew he would sustain if he got hit. He had the nasty suspicion, however, that those turrets packed a vicious punch.

And he was right. The massive volley of ecto blasts hammered upon Danny's shield like Ember's musical fists. It wasn't long before Danny's shield gave in altogether.

"AAARRRGGHHH!!!!" Danny screamed, as he was pelted dozens upon dozens of times by the turrets. When they finally stopped, he struggled to remain air born, slowly losing altitude as his strength ebbed. He gave up, collapsing to the ground in a heap, cracking the road where he landed.

He lifted his head, looking up at Skulker. He was determined to know at least one thing from the ghost.

"You… This… was all planned… Wasn't it?" he rasped out. Skulker chuckled.

"Indeed. Everyone has become mildly sick of you preventing us from leaving, so we thought that if we had enough of us attack in quick succession, you'd fall eventually. If I hadn't succeeded, either Spectra or Walker would have stepped in, to try and finish you off. There was no way you were going to win. Not this time."

Danny merely lay on the ground, panting. He was far too exhausted to move. As much as he hated to admit it, they had beaten him.

Unless Sam and Tucker did what he had asked them to, before Skulker had attacked.

"Well, whelp? Have you accepted your defeat yet?"

Surprisingly, Danny grinned ever so slightly.

"As long as my friends don't have anything to say about it," he replied, closing his eyes. Lord in heaven, he was tired.

Skulker laughed.

"Don't delude yourself, ghost child. Your friends couldn't possibly save you this time."

Naturally, it was precisely after Skulker made that statement that a thin, intense beam of glowing light shot Skulker in the back, wrecking his jets.

"Well, believe it or not Skulker, we just did! Tuck!"

"Bye bye, Skulker!"

Danny didn't have to see to know that Skulker was now being sucked into a metallic thermos, being held by Tucker Foley.

He heard footsteps coming close.

"Yikes, are you still alive there, man?"

"Tucker! Don't joke like that!" Sam exclaimed, distinctly angry at his words.

Danny chuckled weakly. "I'm not quite sure, Tuck," he replied softly, trying not to faint. He felt someone's hand on his shoulder.

"I don't think we can handle this ourselves. Tucker, ring Jazz up, and ask her to get Mr and Mrs Fenton out of the house. It doesn't matter how, they just need to be out, and for the next few hours if at all possible. And ask her to come get us in her car when they're gone. I think we need to keep Danny still for now."

"On it!"

"Danny, are you still awake?" Danny could hear deep concern in her voice.

"Yeah, just," he whispered.

"Good, just hang on. Don't worry about any of the other ghosts, we managed to shut the portal down, liked you asked us. Your parents were in the Ops Centre when we got to your house, so we had no problems."

"Ok," Tucker said. "Jazz is going to tell Mr Fenton that some ghost stole all his fudge out of the fridge, then tell Mrs Fenton that he took some of their more experimental gear with them. And to sweeten the deal, to make sure Mrs Fenton doesn't get suspicious, Jazz is going to actually put some of their stuff in the R.V. before giving Mr Fenton the bait."

"Perfect, that's just what we need. Mr Fenton would chase a ghost for days, if he thought it stole some of his fudge. She's coming to get us, right?"

"Yep, she should be here in about eight minutes, allowing for traffic."

Danny couldn't help but laugh weakly at that. "What traffic?" he asked, chortling. "This is Amity Park we're talking about! Hardly anyone drives except to the mall, and in emergencies!"

"Hey, that's what she said! I'm just the messenger!"

"Well she should know better, shouldn't she? After all, 'Psychologically speaking', she's an adult!" Sam said, laughing gently.

Danny lost track of the conversation, as he slowly slipped into unconsciousness.

* * *

Sam turned to Tucker when she was sure Danny was asleep. She had an idea she wanted to run by him.

"Hey Tuck?" she asked gingerly, not sure he was paying attention to his surroundings.

"Yeah?" he asked back, if a little vaguely. Sam sighed.

"We can't keep the Fenton portal off forever, you know. The Fenton's are gonna notice sooner or later."

"Well yeah," he said, now looking at her. "But we can't do anything about that."

"But the instant the portal's open again, this is just gonna happen, again! They'll keep at it until he loses. He can't fight all of them!"

"Where are you going with this, Sam?" Tucker asked suspiciously. He didn't know Sam as well as Danny did, but he did know when she had something in mind.

"Well, I just thinking if we couldn't, you know, help Danny out a bit more…" she said vaguely. Tucker frowned.

"We help as much as we can already, Sam! We're only humans, we can't do what Danny can!" Sam didn't answer. Not straightaway, at any rate.

"That's… Kinda what I was thinking about…" she said hesitantly. "I mean, the Fenton Portal's off… Turn it on… With, say, a few people inside it…"

Tucker gaped at her, his mouth almost hitting the ground.

"Are you suggesting what I think you are, Sam!?" he asked when he finally got control of himself.

"Maybe. All depends on what you think I'm thinking."

Tucker growled. Actually growled. And he was usually the most non-violent member of the group.

"Sam," he said threateningly. She sighed.

"Fine, fine. Yes, I am thinking that we should turn ourselves into Halfas."

* * *

**Dun dun dun... Don't worry, this isn't the end of the chapter. I'm just inserting comments.**

**Do you like it so far? I certainly hope so. The idea of having the whole lot of them becoming Halfas just sprang into my head. After all, it would enable them to counter just about any ghost attack, wouldn't it? To be honest, I'm sorta surprised I haven't seen any other fics with something like this. If any of you have, please direct me to it.  
**

* * *

"Are you crazy?" Tucker asked vehemently. "You saw what it was like for Danny! We won't be able to control our powers! One person could get away with hiding the fact that he's got ghost powers, but two people?! At the same time!? Someone's bound to notice something!"

"Actually," Sam countered. "We could probably get away with it too, if you think about it. Danny only couldn't control his powers because he was so nervous that someone would find out. We know that if we can just keep calm, no-one will find out. Plus, he never could really control his emotions. We can. At least, I can. You might not be as good at it as I am, but you're certainly better at it than he is!"

"Ok, I'll admit that's a fair point."

"And what's the alternative to not becoming halfas? Danny eventually getting killed by one of the ghosts. He dies, this entire town, if not a sizeable portion of the whole country, might as well die along with him! There aren't really any other professional ghost hunters that can handle half the ghosts that come out of the portal, apart form the Fentons! And even they'd lose, eventually! If we became halfas, we'd be able to stop massive series of attacks from actually working. I mean, if one halfa can fight four different ghosts within two hours, and still put up a decent fight against a fifth one, imagine what three halfas could do!"

Tucker found himself actually listening to her reasoning. She did have a sound case, after all. If Danny did die, it was true that half the country might as well commit suicide, 'cos even just Skulker, Technus and Ember could cause massive damage and chaos. And there were plenty of other ghosts in the ghost zone. Any number of them probably stronger than those three.

And it did seem to be true that Danny's powers were linked to his emotions. And with someone as emotionally turbulent as Danny used to be, that was a recipe for disaster.

Whereas he and Sam had never really had any problems, except perhaps Sam with her temper, once in a while.

He looked up at Sam.

"Alright," he said. "If you can iron out most of the details, I'm in."

Sam grinned.

"Trust me," she said. "I've already got some pretty good ideas."

_

* * *

6 hours later_

Sam frowned slightly as she looked at the sheet of paper in front of her.

She was trying to compile a list of various powers that she and Tucker would likely get from becoming halfas. It was a little vexing. It was a given that invisibility, intangibility and flight would be part and parcel with the entire deal. It was also likely that they'd be able to make ecto-shields and fire ecto-blasts.

Possibly, they'd be capable of duplicating, with a lot of practice.

Danny's slightly more unique powers were proving to be a headache however.

His cryokinetic abilities seemed to be a unique, personal power, almost an idiosyncrasy. True, Frostbite and all of the far frozen had the same ability, but it nonetheless seemed to fit with Danny somehow. Like it was integral to his being a halfa.

The Ghostly Wail, however, was the main source of Sam's headache.

It was so… completely, utterly and impossibly different to any power displayed by any other ghost, excepting his evil older self. Ember's sound based powers couldn't hold a candle to the Ghostly Wail. It was like comparing a watering can to a monsoon.

Besides, her fists and such seemed simply to be sound made solid. The Ghostly Wail had a quality about that made it almost unreal. Although that might be the actual wailing sound, which was enough to petrify even the bravest of souls.

And recently, in the few cases where Danny had been forced to use it, it seemed to almost scald anything caught in it, almost like it was hot, as well as loud. Danny had once had to use it over a river during a ghost fight, and she had noticed a respectable amount of steam coming off it after he was done.

Sighing, she gave up on trying to figure out the Ghostly Wail. Even Danny didn't know fully how it worked. And there were only two other ghosts who might.

One of which was Dark Dan himself. Asking him was completely out of the question.

The other was Clockwork.

And she knew that there was no way she was getting that deep into the ghost zone without Danny's help. If Danny knew what they were going to do, then he'd try to stop them, regardless of the fact that it was the only real option they had.

So asking Clockwork was also out of the question.

All in all, she felt abandoning the Ghostly Wail was a good decision. Instead, she returned to her contemplation of Danny's cryokinetic abilities.

If it was an ability unique to him, (aside from the Far Frozen) then was it possible that they would also gain a unique ability? There was no way to tell. She marked 'Unique ability' as an unconfirmed possibility.

Done with the list, she sat back in her chair, relaxing completely.

* * *

Danny was in his room, asleep. Jazz was sitting down by his bed, just thinking.

He was pretty much fine now, simply tired from the consecutive ghost attacks. After Jazz had driven them all to the Fenton's they had hooked Danny up to an unusual device. One which, justifiably, they were very proud of. It was a contraption that simultaneously replaced lost blood and ectoplasm. After all, with ectoplasm flowing through his veins, it was reasonable that the more he lost, the weaker he became. So, combining the entire group's knowledge of spectral technologies, they had devised something that would replace the two substances, simultaneously keeping Danny's human half safe from blood loss, while re-stocking his ectoplasmic energy, ensuring his ghost half was safe from it's own form of blood loss. Perhaps, accurately speaking, ecto loss.

Jazz gazed over at her brother, still completely unconscious.

She was so proud of what he did. He didn't _have_ to do it, after all. He could easily join forces with the ghosts that regularly attacked, could, in effect, become their leader. Heavens above, with his variety of powers, he'd eventually become strong enough to fight Pariah Dark and win, without using the Ecto-Skeleton!

And yet, he didn't. With Vlad standing as a lesser example of what he could become, he saw a vague idea of the life he'd lead. And he rejected it. Time and time again.

How could anyone not be proud of having a little brother such as he?

* * *

Sam groaned as she lifted herself slowly into a sitting position, instead of a slouching one. She still had work to do on her Halfa idea. Powers were all checked. But there were other issues, such as names, outfits, etc.

She reckoned Tucker could probably go into the portal without any getup. His clothes would likely be sufficiently changed from their regular colours that he would be all but unidentifiable. Herself on the other hand…

Someone was bound to notice similarities. Danny Phantom was different enough from Danny Fenton that no one made the connection. In her situation however, the similarities would be too noticeable. If someone made the connection between her and her ghostly persona, they might make the connection between Fenton and Phantom.

So she needed to design an outfit to wear into the portal. She could work on that later.

The next problem was names. A ghost named Danny and a boy named Danny could be coincidence. Another ghost and boy by exactly the same name would definitely arouse suspicions. Add in a third person and a third ghost, also with exactly the same name… you'd have to be even more clueless than Danny was to not make the glaringly obvious connection.

Yet, they couldn't just make up names and try to call each other by them. It was far too slap dash, and they'd slip up eventually, particularly in a battle. So, they needed to be able to call each other by their real names, and yet have it sound like they were nicknames… but how could they do that?

"Danny's fine, I think," she muttered to herself. "We shouldn't have to come up with a story for him… Perhaps if we don't give last names, even pretend ones, we can avoid a bit of trouble… I definitely need to come up with something though. Perhaps… if I pretended that my middle was actually my first name, and my first name was actually my middle name… I could always say that I preferred my middle name to my first name. It'd certainly be true. I hate having Elizabeth as a middle name. It sounds far too preppy. And then, we could add on that, and say that I prefer to keep it short, so we shortened it to Sam." She thought for a moment.

"Yeah, I reckon that'd work. Now, for Tucker…" This would be the real challenge, she realised. She couldn't simply use the same excuse for him. Similarities were something they had to try and avoid.

'Let's see, Tuck, Tucker, anything that could be related to it? Wait a second…' She paused. Slowly, a grin started to spread across her face, until she realised what she was doing. The grin abruptly became a completely straight set mouth.

She started muttering to herself again.

"We could always say that… It's kinda true; he did have a gigantic amount once… The best thing about it is that it's connected to him, and yet it doesn't look like it at all. Yeah, we could do that…" Grinning again, Sam reached for her mobile. She needed to call Tucker and tell him the idea was pretty much solid.

* * *

Tucker was sitting at home, mobile on his desk, to his computer. He was trying to kill some time by playing Doomed, waiting either for Jazz to ring up, saying Danny was awake, or for Sam to ring about her Halfa idea.

He had to admit, it did sound kinda promising. As long as she got the details all worked out, it could really work. Plus, he'd always been ever so slightly jealous of Danny's powers. Thankfully, he had it pretty much squashed most of the time. It had only ever emerged once, and that was because a certain genie ghost thing decided to stick its nose where it didn't belong: in other people's business.

He was jerked out of his reverie by his phone vibrating on the desk. Quickly, he shut down the game on his computer, and picked up the phone.

"Hey Tuck! Guess what?" Sam asked, brightly.

Tucker paused for a second.

Brightly?

'Probably got a fever or something,' he thought, dismissing it.

"Um, I'm gonna go out on a branch here, and say that you finally realised you're in love with Danny." Tucker said, grinning so broadly you could have fit his PDA into his mouth.

"Tucker!! I know where you live, bear that in mind!"

"Okay, sheesh. Can't even joke about it…" he muttered.

"'Cos it's never gonna happen."

"Whatever. Come on, what are you ringing about?"

"I've pretty much worked out all the details." Tucker jerked suddenly upright in his seat.

"Already?" he asked in disbelief. He knew Sam was quite a motivated person, particularly when it came to protecting Danny in any way. But he found it hard to believe she could have sorted out everything already!

"Yep! Possible powers are all figured out, sorted out any problems we might have with names, outfits, everything!"

"Ok, I call your bluff."

"No bluff. The powers are pretty basic. I reckon we'll get intangibility, invisibility, flight, more than likely ecto-shields and ecto-blasts, and maybe duplication, with some serious practice. And I get the impression we might get a unique power as well."

"Really? Sweet!"

"Now, with regards to outfits, I reckon you could go into the portal as you are. The colours of them would be changed rather significantly, so you'd be all but unrecognisable. Especially as your style of clothes are reasonably common."

"Good," he interjected. "I didn't want to end up wearing a hero suit. I'm much more comfortable in my own stuff."

"That's what I figured. Unfortunately for me, I'm not quite so lucky. My style is unique enough that the similarities would be noticed, even when they're in different colours. So I'm gonna have to make an outfit. Still, I reckon I could make it reasonably good. I'm going to try and counter Danny's outfit, in a way. You know how he has mainly black, with white for the gloves, collar and boots? I'm gonna do it in reverse. White for the trousers and shirt I'll be wearing, with black for the gloves and boots. And the sleeves of the shirt will be more silver than white. Oh, these colours are what they'll be after we've been turned into Halfas, by the way."

"I figured."

"Oh, shush you. I'm also gonna put a kinda cape on, but it won't be from the shoulders. Instead, it's gonna be from the waist. That'll be black."

"Ok," Tucker said. "You do seem to have most of the stuff sorted. Now, what were you saying earlier about names?"

"Ah yes, this is something I'm quite proud of. We're not gonna have any story for Danny, he's fairly well established as is. Myself, I'll be pretending that my middle name, Elizabeth, is actually my first name, and vice versa for my first name. Then, I'll say the I preferred my middle name, and so we used that, as a nickname, and we ended up shortening it to Sam."

"Wow, I'm impressed. That's not a half bad idea at all Sam, nice work."

"Wait till you hear my reasoning for your name. You'll love it. Ok, we're pretending that your first name is Fred, or something. No middle name. We call you Tucker because of an incident once, when we all had dinner at Danny's place, and when his mum said to 'tuck in' you really did tuck in, big time."

Tucker laughed.

"Ok, that's definitely a good one, I'm so going with that," he said, struggling to keep his laughter under control.

"Ok, anything regarding our lives, we don't really talk about, just the parts about our names. Nothing about last names, parents, where we lived, nothing like that. That way, no one can check, and consequently find out that such people didn't exist."

"Is that everything?"

"Yep, everything. Put all those things into effect, no one will be able to figure out that it's us. We'll just be two new ghosts, come to help Danny with the ghost attacks."

"Wow. You've really gone all out on this idea, haven't you?"

"Do you really need to ask that?" Tucker laughed.

"Yeah, that was a bit of a dumb question. So all we really need is for you to get that outfit of yours together, and we're pretty much set to become halfas?"

"Yep. And I happen to know a few people who will work quickly, and stay quiet. I've already told them what I need them to do. The whole thing'll be ready in about a week."

_

* * *

4 days later_

"I can't believe Danny's parents still haven't noticed the Portal's not working," Tucker muttered to Sam, as they watched Danny trying to capture one of the last ghosts who had still been Earthside when the Portal had been turned off.

She almost giggled, catching herself at the last moment. "You can thank Jazz for that. She's been saying things along the lines of 'If you obsess too much about ghosts, they might be able to overshadow you while you're distracted by obsessing over them, and they might seriously damage your mental health!' I never would have bought that myself, but Mr and Mrs Fenton can be kinda dense sometimes. Especially when Jazz uses her psychobabble like that. They've been staying away from ghost stuff. Well, Mrs Fenton anyway. Mr Fenton's probably got another jumpsuit hidden somewhere."

They watched Danny activate his rather crowded Fenton Thermos, sucking in the ghost like a milkshake through a straw. He flew off towards his house, probably to get a new thermos. They weren't quite sure how many ghosts one thermos could hold. They certainly didn't want to break it just yet.

"You suit's coming along?"

"Yeah, they said they posted it via snail mail today, actually. Apparently, they found they had some of the stuff I wanted practically half made already, so it was done early this morning."

"Why are you using snail mail? You've got that super fast hotline of yours."

"Yes, but my parents are told every time that thing's used. Snail mail, they won't be any the wiser."

"So how come you used it that first time Technus appeared?"

"Oh, I already had a good excuse to use. I told them that I was over at a friend's, studying, and their computer software crashed. I didn't feel like going home to study, so I used the hotline to get new software for the computer, so we could continue."

"… And I thought Danny's parents were the gullible ones."

"My parents aren't gullible. They just don't know enough about me to know when I'm lying."

"When's your suit arriving?"

"Probably on Friday. They are only a few states away."

"So when are we going in?" Sam looked around cautiously before answering.

"I'm thinking Saturday night. We can't have Danny awake, or we're in big trouble. The same with Mr and Mrs Fenton. But we'll need Jazz to be awake, so she can help us recover. I've already organised with her what to do. Of course, before we go into the portal, we're going to close off the Lab blast doors. That'll keep anyone from hearing _anything_. Regardless of how loud we might be screaming." Tucker winced at this.

"Yeah, that's one part of the deal I'm not looking forward to." Sam sighed.

"Neither am I Tuck. Neither am I. But it's the only real choice we have."

"Yeah I know. I'm in this as well, all the way. I never said anything about chickening out!"

"Neither did I."

"You were implying something about chickening out though."

"Damn, you know me too well."

_

* * *

2 days later_

Sam sighed gently, looking at the parcel in her lap.

The suit had finally come. It was time to finalise things on Jazz's end.

She picked up her mobile, pressing 3 on speed dial. Two guesses who numbers 2 and 1 were. Not her parents, certainly.

Sam waited patiently for Jazz to pick up. It could take a while, she knew. Especially if she was busy trying to keep Mr and Mrs Fenton out of their lab.

"Yeah, Sam, what is it?"

"Hey Jazz. You got everything ready on your end?"

"Just about. Got one of Tucker's berets, in case we need to hide his ghostly one. I managed to get Danny to think about inviting you two over here for a movie night; so you're being over here won't be any problem. Mom and Dad have promised to stay away from ghost stuff until Monday, so the Lab'll be clear. We just need you two over with that suit of yours, everyone else to be asleep, and we're good to go."

"Ok. See you tomorrow."

"See ya."

* * *

**Well? Did you like it?**

**I'm semi proud of myself for Sam's outfit. Took me a while to think of something for her to wear... Incidentally, her cape won't be hanging from the hips, it'll actually be hanging a bit behind. That way, it's virtually impossible for her feet to get tangled in it.**

**I'd be very happy if I got reviews for this. I plan to make this my main fic.**

**As Sam figured out earlier, she and Tucker will be getting most of the same powers as Danny. They won't get Cryokinesis, they'll get their own unique abilities. And they won't get the ghostly wail. Sam's unique power will also be quite different from her unique one in Return of Phantom. Tucker's will be pretty much the same.**

**I hope you like the measures they're going to, to ensure no one makes any connection between their ghostly and the human selves. I figured calling each other by their real names, and saying that they were their real names would be too risky. After all, it's a minor miracle that it's worked for Danny for so long.**

**Ah, forgot to say. This occurs before Phantom Planet. All the other episodes have happened, however. This would place the trio at about 16 years old. Maybe getting close to 17. I might decide later on.**

**Pretty please, review? I really do like getting reviews.**

**-Eidorian999  
**


	2. Chapter 2

**Wow, this took a lot longer than I expected. But, I am finally able to post this new chapter. I hope you all like it! Please forgive me all the time skips I put into this story, but if I didn't put them in, I would have to do way more detail, and these chapters are long enough as they are.**

* * *

Danny yawned, slowly waking up.

He wasn't much of a morning person. He was similar to Sam in that respect, though their dislikes of mornings were for slightly different reasons. She didn't like mornings because the sun was involved. As were her parents. _He_ didn't like mornings because they involved him getting up.

Hey, they were teenagers. No one ever said a teenager's reasons were always good ones.

He lifted himself up, struggling to not fall back down.

He really needed some way to wake him up in the mornings… Perhaps coffee would work. He'd never tried it, but it was worth a shot.

Danny yawned once more before getting fully out of bed.

Five minutes later, he was downstairs eating breakfast. He'd decided to forego trying coffee, in favour of having a cold shower after breakfast. He didn't know whether or not caffeine would affect him after all, what with his unique metabolism. He made a mental note to find out at some point during the next school holidays.

His thoughts were interrupted by Jazz.

"So are you going to ask Sam and Tucker over, Danny?"

Swallowing his current mouthful, he replied, "Remind why you want them over, please. It's a little weird, my sister asking me to invite my friends over."

Jazz shrugged.

"Well, I don't really get all that many chances to know them better outside of the odd ghost fight or two. After all, you guys very rarely need me, I'm just emergency back up." Danny shook his head violently at this.

"No way is that all you are. Seriously, I need someone to make sure my head stays on straight, and you do a damn good job of it." Jazz grinned ever so slightly.

"I bet Sam does a better job though."

Danny narrowed his eyes, knowing Jazz simply _had_ to have a reason to bring Sam into the conversation.

"Why are you bringing Sam into this?" he asked cautiously. She grinned, casually reaching one hand up to fix her hair.

"Oh, I'm just saying that with her attitude, her combat boots, the crush you two have on each other and similar likes and dislikes, she'd be able to keep you in line really easily, that's all."

"Oh."

She struggled not to burst out laughing. Three. Two. One.

"Wait, what was that?"

"What was what, Danny?"

"What you just said."

"That you and Sam tend to like and dislike the same things?" He frowned, having a strange sense of déjà vu.

"No, before that."

"Her combat boots?" She had to really put effort into not laughing now, not quite able to believe her brother had just fallen for that trick.

"No," he said, almost yelling now. "In. The. MIDDLE!"

"Oh, that you two have a crush on each other?"

THWACK!

Danny's head collided with the table so hard and fast that cracks appeared in it.

Jazz couldn't contain her laughter anymore, cackling like a mad old witch who had just flown off, having committed some unspeakable crime.

"Oh sure, very funny Jazz. You'd just better hope Bearbert Einstein doesn't find his way into the garbage anytime soon."

"Danny! You wouldn't!"

"Oh yeah?"

Jazz was majoring in psychology, so she could tell when someone was willing to carry out a threat. And Danny was definitely more than willing to carry his out.

"Ok, forget I said that."

"Don't worry, I will."

"So are you going to ask Sam and Tucker over?"

"Only if you promise not to psychoanalyse them."

"Fine. I'll keep any observations I make to myself, and I won't ask any psychological questions."

"That's good enough for me. I'll ask 'em later, we're going out to the Nasty Burger for lunch."

"Ok. Make sure you remember."

"I will! Sheesh, you don't have to be so determined to secretly psychoanalyse them."

"I'm not going to psychoanalyse them!"

"You say that, but you and I both know you don't mean it. You're _so_ going to end up analysing them."

Jazz rolled her eyes.

"I said I wouldn't, will you give up on that?"

"No."

Jazz sighed exasperatedly. Clearly Danny lacked the ability to change his mind about something.

"Whatever, if you want to be an immature little child, that's your choice. Don't think I won't tell Sam how you were behaving. She does still wear those combat boots of hers, doesn't she?"

Danny was now as pale as a bed sheet.

He'd had experience with those boots of hers. Very _painful_ experience. And all the ghost powers in the world wouldn't be able to keep him safe from her, he knew.

"Ok, you win. I give up."

"Good."

Jazz sighed gently as Danny ran out the front door to meet up with his friends.

"I am so glad you don't know about what we're planning, Danny," she said softly.

* * *

"Jeez Tuck, slaughter an entire farm of animals why don't you?" Sam complained, looking sick enough to require a doctor.

The three of them were sitting at their usual table at the Nasty Burger, having the usual argument about food. Tucker advocating meat, Sam advocating vegetables and other such animal friendly foods, Danny simply sitting on the proverbial fence in between the two of them.

It was one thing to fight ghosts. To interfere or take a side in this eternal food centric debate was another thing altogether. Considering the resources Sam's family had at their disposal, hiring someone to make his life miserable if he sided with Tucker wouldn't be too difficult for her. If he sided with Sam, there were a thousand things Tucker could do with his PDA. Sure, they could best him in a physical confrontation. But if he got anywhere near a computer, things would turn very ugly, very fast.

For one, Tucker had several videos of Danny transforming.

For another, he had somehow managed to get a quick video of him kissing Sam during the mess with Desiree and the meteor shower. If THAT ever got out, Sam's parents wouldn't just make his life miserable; they'd hire a hitman. Several, more than likely. And probably accuse him of harassment.

Heaven only knew how unpleasant life would if that happened.

So he simply sat right where he was, not paying attention to the argument, not reacting when one of them mentioned anything about the food to him.

"Look, I need the meat. It's not like you need it, those combat boots of yours are lethal!"

"So? That doesn't mean _you_ have to eat quite so much!"

"Guys!" Danny exclaimed exasperatedly. "You've been arguing even more than you usually do! Can you give it a bit of a break please?"

"Sorry Danny," the two of them said simultaneously.

Sam glanced at the black haired boy sitting next to her, looking for anything other than annoyance in his oh-so-expressive sky blue eyes. She knew him well enough that if he suspected anything, she'd be able to see it.

Nothing. She sighed ever so slightly.

She felt bad about going behind his back like this. She knew full well how hard it was to be a Halfa. Danny might well think that were doing this just for the kicks. He simply wouldn't want the kind of life he lived to be visited upon anyone else, regardless of who they were. Especially after that mess with his alternate self. Although Sam refused to think of that being as _really_ being Danny. Danny had positive emotions in plenty, while that _thing_ not only lacked them; all negative emotions seemed to be concentrated in it. Whatever it was, it _wasn't_ Danny. Not the way she saw it.

They sat in companionable silence for the next few minutes, eating their food. As they got up to put their stuff in the bin, Danny turned to them, a questioning look on his face.

"Oh, I almost forgot, Jazz wanted me to invite you guys over for a movie night. Said something about not really knowing either of you outside of the occasional ghost fight." Danny rolled his eyes as he finished.

Sam grinned. "That sounds like Jazz," she said simply.

"Dude, is she gonna psychoanalyse us? 'Cos I really don't wanna go through that." Tucker interjected, a slightly worried look on his face.

Danny laughed.

"No," he said. "She said that she wasn't going to ask either of you any psychological questions."

Tucker frowned slightly.

"I refuse to believe she'll keep that promise," he muttered darkly to himself, only loud enough for him to hear.

"Well, I don't think my parent's will care, especially as they're not here. I can just say they said yes, and no one will be any the wiser."

"Cool. What about you Tuck?"

"Yeah, I can come over. I just need to make sure I've got stuff to entertain me in case I get bored, and I'll be set."

Danny snorted.

"You and your tech… Seriously, you need to cut down on how much you use that stuff. It's gonna suck your brain out or something eventually."

"The day Walker decides not to try and arrest you is the day I stop using my tech!"

"We… could be waiting a while."

* * *

Sam opened her eyes, letting them slowly become accustomed to the lack of light.

The movie night had been fantastic, bluntly put. If it weren't for the fact that she had something important to do, she'd be fast asleep. But she did have something important to do.

Moving slowly, she got up off the sofa and walked over to where Tucker lay, stepping carefully over Danny as she went.

Reaching her arm out, she grabbed Tucker's shoulder and gently tried to shake him awake.

"Tuck," she whispered. "Wake up, time to become a halfa."

Blearily, Tucker opened an eye. "Is that supposed to motivate me?" muttered back. "I saw how painful it was for Danny."

Sam frowned down at him.

"No backing out now Foley. Come on, wake up. I'm going to get Jazz and if you're not up by the time we come back down your dead."

"Alright, alright…"

As Sam treaded carefully up the stairs, Tucker slowly pulled himself up off the sofa, bringing his mind to full consciousness.

He was really looking forward to this. Sure, the sheer amount of pain they were going to be going through soon would be really really unpleasant. But the benefits would be so _sweet!_

Sam opened the door to Jazz's room slowly. She stepped inside, walking gently over to where the older girl slept.

And stopped dead when the floor creaked treacherously under her feet.

"Hm? Wha-… Oh, it's you Sam. Why… Oh! Are you and Tucker ready? What time is it anyway?"

"I dunno about the time, but Tuck and I are ready; yes. You coming or not?"

"Yeah, just give me a minute… My body's awake, but my mind's still a bit drowsy."

"We'll meet you in the lab."

"'K. Don't touch any buttons down there, I'm not sure what half of them do."

"Will do."

Sam descended the stairs to find that Tucker was no longer lying on the sofa.

'I guess he managed to wake up after all,' She thought suprisedly.

Jazz carefully looked over the data on the portal controls, making sure that each power switch was off, the ecto filtrator was clean, and structural integrity of the portal mechanism itself was still sound. Checking each item of a mental list, she then headed over to the power fluctuation control dials next to the portal, aligning them to the spots indicated in Sam's photo album.

"Alright," she said to the teenagers waiting patiently behind her. "It's pretty much all set up. I'll just check that the inside switch is off, then I can start to turn the power on. You two are going to have to do the last switch yourselves. I'm not quite ready to become a halfa myself yet." The two of them nodded.

Jazz moved inside the metal structure, looking for the infamous green and red buttons that had turned their world all but upside down. She found them…

And the green button was still pressed in.

She pushed the red one, hearing a slight thunk as it pushed the 'on' switch out. She emerged, breathing deeply to calm herself down.

She couldn't help it. She'd heard from Danny what happened in The Accident, had heard him try to describe how painful it was. And now she was going to witness it herself, firsthand.

Jazz simply nodded at Sam and Tucker, indicating that they could enter the portal structure.

She had to admit, she rather liked Sam's outfit for her ghost half. When the colours were inversed, it'd be a very good counter to Danny's mostly black outfit.

Shaking her head to bring herself back to the present, Jazz moved back to the portal controls.

"Ok Jazz, ready when you are!" Sam said from inside the portal.

"I'll tell you when. The powering up sequence for this thing is kinda ridiculous… Oh well, first thing's first: plug it in to the power socket."

She did so; not stopping to listen to the faint humming that was now pervading the lab. Instead, she flicked on a few switches, modified a dial here, opened a power link there, and then continued to flick even more power switches.

It made sense in a way, that the portal required a lengthy and complicated power up. It was meant to prevent accidents. It would've prevented Danny's Accident, if the system had been restored to 'off' after the failed attempt to turn it on.

She checked over every single reading and indicator one last time, before flicking the second last switch, one that was DNA locked.

By now, the humming in the lab was more noticeable, almost seeming to be a kind of dramatic build up to the event about to take place.

Sam watched anxiously as Jazz went through the entire sequence, slowly but surely. She trembled in anticipation as the hum gradually built with each power switch that Jazz flicked on. And she very nearly fainted out of sheer terror when Jazz said "It's ready. Hit the button."

The only reason she hadn't was because Tucker was there. If he ever saw her faint, he'd never let her live it down.

And there was NO WAY in _HELL_ that she was going to let that happen.

So, with her heart pounding at four beats to the second, she slammed her open palm onto the green button marked as 'on'.

Jazz couldn't watch as the portal's circuits suddenly started glowing bright green, and added their own humming to the tense atmosphere. But as the electrical crackling erupted from the dimensional splicers around the mouth of the portal, she couldn't help but jerk her eyes open, to make sure that everything was still okay.

It certainly didn't look like it was, even though she knew the green bolts of ecto energy were supposed to occur.

And it most certainly didn't sound like everything was ok, when she heard the twin screams coming from Danny's best friends.

Jazz couldn't imagine the amount of pain they had to be going through, to be uttering such horrendous, fear inducing screams.

* * *

Sam woke up slowly, her limbs feeling like they'd been broken in a hundred different spots, and then stuck back together with large blobs of superglue.

Not the most pleasant feeling she'd ever experienced in her lifetime.

It took her a while to actually open her eyes and register what she was seeing. The part of her brain that dealt with sight wasn't in particularly good shape this morning.

Danny was still asleep on the floor, wrapped in a blanket. Surprising, and yet not surprising. Danny tended to sleep in rather late, but that was because of ghost attacks. There hadn't been any ghost attacks for over a week, thanks to the portal being shut down.

Tucker was once more lying on the sofa across from her. He didn't seem to be in ghost form. Good. That was one thing they'd been afraid of, remaining in ghost form even after passing out.

In the dining room across the hall Jazz was eating away at a bowl of cereal.

She looked up and, seeing Sam awake, smiled brightly.

Sam tried to suppress and inadvertent shudder. Bright smiles reminded her of her parents.

Jazz finished off her breakfast and walked over to the teenage girl, now teenage halfa.

"Hey, you feeling alright?" she asked, a motherly tone in her voice. Sure, they were not in any way related, but really, she was the adult of the group, and she had some of her mother instincts, one of them being the compulsion to look after people.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Sam replied. "Just… sore, is all. My arms and legs feel so weird… Anyone wake up because of our screaming last night?"

Jazz shook her head. "No. The door did it's job, no one had a clue anything happened." She grinned slightly at the gothic girl. "Congratulations," she said. "You are officially the fourth halfa on the planet."

"I'm not entirely sure that's cause for celebration," she replied with a wan smile. "'Cos I'd be more than happy to pass up on the whole pain thing. That portal is no joy ride."

"I figured," Jazz said despondently. "It certainly didn't look like you and Tuck had any fun being transformed last night." Sam jerked her head up at this.

"That's a point, did we actually get transformed? I don't remember anything after hitting the button."

"Yep. You're both brand new halfas. You costume changed exactly the way you thought it would, so bonus points for that. Tucker's clothes also changed colour. His beret is yellow, his shirt is red and his pants are a faded blue. It's kinda painful on the eyes."

"Ok. Wow… I almost can't believe it. We're actually half ghost…"

"Now we just need to tell Danny and get control of our powers."

"Tucker!" the girls cried out at once. "You're awake!"

"Have been for the past few minutes. I just wasn't feeling up to actually opening my eyes." Sam rolled her own at this.

"I know what you mean. Everything's just _aching_ isn't it?"

"Yeah, it's aching all right. It's _definitely_ aching."

"Now, getting back to the important point… How are we going to tell Danny that we're halfas now as well?"

"How about he already knows because you were all talking so loud?" Danny's voice drifted from his prone form on the floor.

There was silence for a few moments. Then…

"Ah. Well, damn it."

* * *

Danny paced angrily, having flown the whole lot of them (excluding Jazz) to just outside of town. Sam and Tucker could have flown under their own power, but they felt it was best not to aggravate the rather vexed Halfa any more than necessary.

"What I don't get is why you'd do this! You know what it's like for me, having to deal with ghost powers! If my parents find out that all three of us are Halfas, they'll rip all of us apart 'molecule by molecule!'"

"That's exactly why we did it Danny!" Sam yelled at him, trying to get his attention.

_

* * *

Tucker's POV_

I probably should have gotten involved in the argument at some point. After all, I _was_ technically guilty. But Danny was angry. If I got involved, I'd get hurt. I know he'd _never_ hurt Sam. But him getting angry with us like this was not going to end up being very pretty. Especially for Danny. I could just tell that sooner or later, he'd say _just_ the wrong thing, something that would really set Sam's own overprotective and furious half. When that happened… Yeah, I _really_ didn't want to get involved just yet…

* * *

He ignored her.

"I mean, it's bad enough that someone ahs to deal with them at all, let alone you two joining in! It's not always easy you know! It's not always just shoving the Box Ghost into a thermos!"

_

* * *

Tucker's POV_

And there it was. I remember when he first said that to us…

Well, more to Sam, but that's beside the point.

But it was definitely the wrong thing to say. Sam had been upset enough back then. Now, when he was getting nearly killed by regular ghosts, and we'd turned ourselves into Halfas just so we could help him… To have him reject our help with _that_ particular line would be like arming a nuclear warhead, and then sitting on top of it, shooting at it.

* * *

Sam felt something snap. She wasn't sure what, and she never found out. But Danny using that line on _HER_ of all people, _NOW_ of all times…

Danny didn't realise what she was doing until she'd already done it.

WAP!!!

Normally, she would use her boots to inflict pain or get people's attention. But she didn't think it would quite as satisfying in this case. So she resorted to the tried and tested girls method of attack, and slapped him across the face.

_HARD._

So hard, in fact, that he went sprawling onto the ground.

Danny looked up at the furious Halfa girl in something akin to shock. (A/N Can you blame him?)

"What was that for?" he asked, bewildered.

Sam glared down at him, faint shimmers at the corners of her eyes indicating she was on the verge of crying.

"What was that for? What was that _for!?!?_ How about rejecting my help even though I don't care what happens to me!? How about being perfectly content with signing your own death warrant regardless of how _we_ felt about it!? How about getting mad at us when we haven't been in a real fight since we met!? How about all that!? That reason enough for you!?"

"Wha-" was all Danny had time to mutter.

"We're doing this for _you_, can't you see that!? You'll die if the ghosts attack like they did last time, and you're on your own! If you die, the res of us are better off dead! Do you _want_ Vlad to kill your dad and marry your mum!? Do you _want_ him to take over the world!? Do you _want_ us to be hunted down like animals for helping you so much!?"

"What! No!"

"Then what!? Do you just want us to die right here? Is _that_ what you want!?"

"Sam! Stop it! Of course I don't want that to happen to you! That's why I never asked you two to becomes Halfas!"

"We're more likely to get killed as humans, Danny! At least as Halfas we can defend ourselves!"

"What about the Guys in White!? My Parents!? _YOUR parents!?_"

"What about them!? Do you not realise that no matter how hard they try, they can't catch you? You're too powerful for them! And you're just _one_ Halfa! There's no way they could beat all three of us, especially if we became as powerful as you! You're the person who's really important to us Danny! If our parents died, you and your family are the ones we'd turn to straight away! If we got overshadowed, you're the one we know would try to free us! No matter what! And we both think it's about time we returned the favour!"

Surprisingly, her face softened quite significantly.

"You don't have to do everything alone, Danny," Sam whispered gently. "We can help you. We can be heroes too, Danny. You just didn't want to see that."

* * *

"So… You're not really mad at us anymore?" Sam asked hesitantly.

Danny sighed heavily. "No," he said. "I guess not. It was your choice to make, not mine. And you did do it just to try and help me, and the town, so… No. I'm not mad at you anymore."

Tucker sighed in relief. "That's good," he said. "'Cos I really don't think we would have stood a chance against you if you had decided to fight us. You've got way more experience."

"Which is something we'll have to fix if you're gonna help me," Danny interjected. "Come on. We're going to try and get you two to use your powers."

"Come on Tucker, it's not that difficult. Your powers pretty much do what you want them to. Just think about being a ghost. Sam's already got the hang of it."

"Well some of us aren't quite so much into creepy ghost stuff."

"Tuck, you've been helping me fight ghosts for two years now. That's not really an excuse."

"Yeah, it's not really all that difficult Tucker. Just think cold, ghost, you should get it in no time."

"Ok, I get it!"

A few more seconds passed, then yellow rings appeared at his waist and separated, sweeping up and down his form, leaving a familiar yet different person behind.

Danny blinked rapidly for a second. "Wow. That, uh, that's slightly painful to the eyes."

Tucker just shrugged.

"I don't really care, it looks more comfortable than your jumpsuit." Danny raised an eyebrow at this.

"You got a problem with jumpsuits?" he asked ominously.

Tucker sweat dropped. "Uhh… no?"

_

* * *

Next day (Sunday, just in case you're wondering) at 11:00 A.M._

"Ok, I'm impressed. It took me several ghost attacks before I made an ecto blast, and you guys are already trying to turn the park into a warground!"

Sam looked around at this. She grinned sheepishly at Danny. The main culprits behind all the potholes around them were her and her dark purple ecto blasts. Tucker had been much more careful with his aiming.

"Think we'll have to work on our aim before getting into a fight?" she asked timidly.

Danny's only response was a raised eyebrow.

Tucker curled his fingers in front of his face, watching yellow ectoplasmic mist disappear from his hand.

He had to admit, he really liked the new benefits. Yeah, he'd have to avoid the whole 'abusing his powers' thing, so no excessive ghostly getback against Dash, but the few times he did get it… would be worth remembering. He'd make sure of that.

Danny looked at them for a few seconds, thinking.

They were advancing very fast. It was kinda scary.

Perhaps it was because he was teaching them how to use their powers to the best of his knowledge. After all, he'd had to learn on his own without any sort of constructive advice from any of his enemies. That was hardly good teaching. In this case though, perhaps having someone who already knew the ropes tell them how to do it made all the difference.

He made a quick split second decision.

"Hey, how about we have a practice fight?" he suggested to the other two. "I know I'd probably win, being more experienced, but you're gonna have to learn sooner or later."

A loud cry of "You're on!" came from Sam, while Tucker simply said, "Yeah, sure. But I fight you second."

"Chicken," Sam teased him, sticking her tongue out at him. Danny grinned at the friendly bickering. He floated backwards gently while Sam wasn't looking, getting into a ready position.

"Whenever you want, Sam," he called gently. Sam's head whirled to look at him. A smirk grew on her face as she took in his challenging air.

"Alright ghost boy," she said confidently. "You're going down!"

She flew straight forward, fists charged with ectoplasm, apparently intending to ram Danny.

Danny had been in his fair share of fights though, and if there was one thing he'd learned from Vlad, it was how to reach past a grabbing opponent. Heaven only knew how many times he'd fallen for the same trick.

Just before Sam reached him, he put on a forward burst of speed himself, quickly dashing under Sam's outstretched arms. Before Sam realised he'd evaded her, he grabbed one of her legs as it went flying past, and flung her into the air. He grinned at her, slowly levitating to match her level.

Tucker raised an eyebrow. That was new. He'd never seen Danny pull a move like that before.

"Bet you can't do that again," Sam called out to Danny.

He simply grinned and called back, "Why don't you try again and find out for sure?"

Once again Sam flew forward, this time firing ecto blasts as she came, in an attempt to catch him off guard.

They didn't phase him for second. Well, he did phase, but of his own volition.

As they went soaring straight through him, he readied one of his own, larger than any Sam was able to make, but not strong enough that she couldn't possibly block it. He didn't want to put her into the hospital.

He lobbed it at her, readying and firing two smaller blasts immediately, covering above and below the originally blast. Then, he charged forward with his arms outstretched to cover the sides. He intercepted her rather neatly as she dove to the side, having seen the following ecto blasts. Before she recovered from the tackle and fought back against the hold he had around her, he threw her downwards, creating a shield around her before she hit the ground.

Danny grinned down at the now thoroughly bewildered ghost girl, before calling out, "I think I won that one."

"Yep," Sam acquiesced without argument. "You definitely won. I'm not sure which way's down anymore."

_

* * *

Tucker's POV_

Perfect. Danny was busy gloating about his victory over Sam. Time for a sneak attack. I'd already figured a head on assault wouldn't work. Danny had more experience moving quickly and strongly than I did, and he had clearly been learning a few things from Vlad, however much he would hate to admit it.

I turned invisible, flying up right behind Danny, willing an ecto blast to form in my hand. I threw straight at his head, expecting to see him tumble at the very least, from shock at the sudden attack.

And was quite soundly shocked when I realised Danny had been one step ahead of me.

The Danny I'd attacked was a duplicate.

The other Danny appeared right next to me with his own fully charged ecto blast.

"Aw crud," I murmured, before he slammed the glowing ball of energy into my stomach.

Not terribly hard, thankfully. However out of control his fights with Skulker and the others might be, he really does know how to pull a punch.

_

* * *

A week later…_

"Well?" Walker asked angrily of the ghosts assembled in front of him. "Are we ready to try again?"

"Yes, I think so. I have fully functioning suit, courtesy of Technus." He inclined his head toward the technomancer.

"AHAHAHA! Yes, that suit is my best creation yet for Skulker! It will allow him to multitask like a only a computer can!"

"Good. I take you have selected targets to make your next war machine out of, Technus?"

"Indeed I have! I will easily con-"

"Can it. We don't have time to listen to you boast. Ember, are you prepared?" The ghostly singer nodded.

"I've got a new guitar, it has several new settings on it, and I've even attached retractable blades to it. That should be good enough."

"Spectra?"

"I've been feeding off the misery of so many ghosts, I lost count. And you know how rare it is for me to do that."

"Have we had any word from Aragon?"

"I believe he wishes to defeat the child on his own, so he won't be helping us."

"Very well. Now remember, we all go through the portal at once, instead of waiting on this side like last time. Assemble in front of the portal by 1300 wails. Go."

* * *

Danny gaped slightly at his two friends.

"Well? What do you think?" Sam asked with a slight grin.

"Are you nuts!?" he replied in amazement. "You want to practically say 'HI' to the entire town and then… Wow. That's one hell of an idea, I have to admit."

"We thought so," Tucker said smugly.

All at once, three different yet similar things happened. Danny shivered, Sam tensed up, and Tucker jerked like he'd been poked with a cattle prod. And all three of them saw their own breath, albeit in different colours. Sam's was dark purple, almost black, Danny's was the usual icy blue, while Tucker's was white.

They all three of them looked at each other, and said exactly the same thing.

"Goin' Ghost!"

* * *

"Where is he?" Walker growled. "That punk should have been here by now!"

Ember yelled over at him, "Maybe he got held up by some other ghost?"

The five of them, Walker, Skulker, Ember, Technus, and Spectra, were attacking Amity Park Town Hall, in the hopes of drawing Phantom out, and crushing him once and for all.

But it was beginning to look as if he wasn't home.

"This is ridiculous!" Skulker called out, firing several lasers down at the streets. "He usually shows up within two minutes of a ghost attack happening, especially on weekends! We've been here at least ten! Something must have happened to him!"

"Why would they open the portal if he wasn't able to defend the town!?" Ember yelled back at the cybernetic hunter.

"It matters not!" Technus put in. Loudly. "For now we can capture this town, and turn it into a fortress for our kind, so that when the ghost child returns, we can truly crush him once and for all!"

"I can't believe this. You're yelling out your plans _again_, Technus? Didn't you sort that out with Technus 2.0"

"GHOST BOY!" came the cry from five different throats, all at once.

Danny grinned down at them. "Hi there," he said jocularly. "You guys _were_ looking for me, right?"

Skulker grinned. "Indeed. And now you truly have no chance of victory. Even if your human friends were to help you with their ecto weapons, they would not be able to do much. Not against all of us."

Danny shrugged.

"Yeah, you're probably right." He paused. "I guess it's good for me they're not using humans ecto weapons anymore, hey?"

"Come again?"

His grin became a distinctive smirk. "Who on Earth ever said we had to play by the rules when you won't?" he asked.

Ember and Spectra were both suddenly pummelled towards the ground by different coloured ecto blasts.

"What!?" the remaining three ghosts yelled out in shock.

Danny continued smirking at them. "I did say they weren't using human weapons anymore." He pointed upwards and continued. "Say hello to the new ghostly defenders of Amity Park, Sam and Tucker!"

Walker's, Skulker's and Technus's mouths all gaped open wide enough to fit a fist sized rock in no problem.

There, hovering not five metres above Phantom, were two people that all of them were very familiar with. And yet not familiar with.

There was someone who strongly resembled the goth girl they knew Phantom was friends with, but this did not look like her, dressed predominantly in white, with white hair and a silver half-cape.

And the other resembled his other friend, and yet again, did not look like him either, dressed in an even worse combination of colours than Phantom's techno savvy friend.

"What!?" Walker was the first to recover. "how- Who are you!?"

"Danny just told you, idiot." Sam stated loftily.

"Sam and Tucker, both here to help!" Tucker added.

Danny looked up at his friends. "Pick which one you want, and go for 'em!" he called up.

Tucker instantly turned to Technus and started glaring. "I don't care how well he thinks he knows his tech," he said. "I still know it better than he does!"

"I seem to remember Walker trying to put an electric collar on me once, don't you Danny?" Sam asked with a falsely sweet tone in her voice.

Danny was still grinning. "Definitely. Think it's time you got some payback on him?"

"Oh yeah."

"I guess that leaves you and me Skulker."

Danny brought his right arm up to his left shoulder, clenching all but his first two fingers.

He then swung it forward again, charged with an ecto blast, saying, "Team Phantom: Go!"

* * *

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is incredible. Earlier today, Amity Park Town Square was assaulted by five different ghosts, all of them appearing intent on destroying the city. We were worried that Danny Phantom would be unable to handle this many ghosts all at once, but it appears that we no longer have to worry! For not only has Phantom shown up, he appears to have two allies fighting with him, a boy and a girl, both of them look to be about the same age as himself. The girl even has a similar outfit, simply with the colours reversed! This footage is being shown to you live, as we watch the ghosts battle in the sky."

"-wo of the ghosts were apparently knocked out of the sky by a surprise attack from Danny Phantom's new allies. They would appear to know each other, as none of them seemed surprised at the others being there. This would suggest that they were friends in life before dying, and now they have re-united, as ghosts, to defend this town from others of their kind. As we speak, the three defenders of Amity Park are waging what almost appears to be a miniature war against the remaining three ghosts!"

"Wait, one of the attacking ghosts appears to have been downed! I think it's the one called Skulker, and- Yes, yes, he's definitely been defeated, Danny Phantom has just sucked him into what appears to be a metallic thermos. This truly is an astounding day, ladies and gentlemen."

"It would appear that Danny Phantom is confident his friend can handle the remaining ghosts, as he is simply floating in mid air now, watching them."

* * *

"HAHA! Foolish child! You cannot possibly beat- WHAT!?!? HOW'D YOU DO THAT?"

"You still haven't learnt that portals XL is a crappy piece of software yet, have you? That was _way_ too easy to hack, and I'm using a regular PDA here!"

"You have not defeated meeeeeee……"

"Actually, Technus, I think he just did. Otherwise you wouldn't have been sucked into the thermos."

* * *

"Now only one ghost remains, and it appears that the girl is merely toying with him, firing blasts of energy at him from her hands. You would think that he would return fire, but it seems that he either does not have the ability to do so, or lacks significant power to make them strong enough to hurt his opponent, while she seems to be doing quite impressive damage to him."

* * *

"Come on, Sam, stop playing around!"

"Oh, alright. I'll make you regret stopping my fun later…"

"Tuck, am I the only scared by that?"

"No dude. I'm terrified."

"Good. I'm not alone."

* * *

"and… She's finished him off! All five of the ghosts who attacked Amity Park Town Square earlier today have now been defeated and sucked into thermoses by Phantom and his new allies."

"It seems as if they are talking amongst themselves… Wait… They are descending! The three of them are now floating down towards the ground! They're walking up to the Town Hall steps…"

* * *

Danny stopped at the foot of the steps, looking back at the others. They grinned at him, making 'shooing' motions with their hands. He faced the Town Hall again.

"Please excuse us, everybody," he said to the growing crowd assembled around them. "But if it's alright, we'd like have a quick talk with the mayor, if at all possible. We have one or two little things we'd like to talk to him about." The giant crowd suddenly hushed. He simply smiled.

"Don't worry, we'll keep our hands in plain sight, and pointing away from him. We won't accidentally fire an ecto blast at him. Or deliberately either. We just want to talk, that's all."

The crowd started murmuring again, low at first, but it quickly gained volume.

It was cut off as the Town Hall doors opened to reveal the mayor of Amity Park, Antonio Sanchez.

Antonio slowly walked forward, wary of meeting such a famous, and obviously powerful ghost. Who knew what it might want. It was clearly starting to gather it's own army, if these two new ghosts were any indication.

"You wished to speak with me?" he asked cautiously.

"Well, not me, as such." He looked backward at Sam. "Well?" he asked her. "You wanted to talk with him, here he is."

She smiled slightly and stepped forward.

She stuck her hand out to the large man. "Pleasure to meet you, sir," she said smoothly.

He returned the gesture, shaking her hand. "Likewise. I hope you don't mind if I'm blunt, but what do you want?"

She smiled. "Nothing like you handing the city over. Rather, we need your help with something a little bit more mundane, so to speak. You see, me and my friend over there," she inclined her head back towards Tucker. "Are rather new at being ghosts. We're old friends of Danny's however, so we decided to help him. He told us something about him having a reputation around here…"

"Indeed he does have one, and it's not always positive."

"Exactly what we need your help with actually. We don't want you to tell the town that we're good ghosts, that we are here to help. We just need you to set this up for us…" Sam handed a folded sheet of paper to Antonio.

He looked it over and started. He quickly jerked his head back up to look at the girl, but she was already gone.

* * *

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have shocking news here today at Amity Park Town Hall. Just a few minutes ago, the mayor Antonio Sanchez announced that Danny Phantom and his new allies wish for an open press conference to be held, right here in the Town Hall, on Friday. Hold onto your seats everyone, we may just get some answers about Phantom and his friends. Who they are, what they want, and why they are here. Mark Friday down on your calendars, people. It's going to be a day to remember."

* * *

**I'm kinda proud of this chapter, but you may feel differently. I would appreciate reviews telling me if the pace I'm going at is ok. If I'm going too fast, or skipping too much, I can try and rewrite this, but it'd take ages.**

**To any readers of Return of Phantom, if you would like me to hurry up and update with a new chapter, say so, and I shall endeavor to have a new chapter out as quickly as I can get it done. Otherwise, I shall simply work on it as I get inspiration.**

**Please do remember that all reviews are welcome, aside from flames, but I would especially like constructive criticism.**

**Did any of you see the press conference thing coming before it was said?**

**So you know, I don't plan to have Vlad in this story, and I have a reason why he won't be in it. As in, a story reason. I'll inform you next chapter.**

**Antonio Sanchez is Paulina's Dad. I don't think his name is ever said anywhere, so I just came up with one. He's supposed to be all rich, so I thought I might as well make him the mayor.**

**Danny calls the group Team Phantom because each of them is going to attach 'Phantom' to their first name, making a real team of Phantoms.**

**All kinds of interesting questions will be asked at the press conference... It's gonna be messy. =)**

**I truly hope you enjoyed this!**

**-Eidorian999  
**


	3. Chapter 3

**Wow. I didn't expect to get this up so soon after chapter two. But I had this massive burst of inspiration. Thank you to Music!**

**I have a confession to make, and really good news after that.**

**I'm afraid to admit this, but I sort of started Return of Phantom and Team Phantom: Youths of the Ghost Zone without an actual plot in mind for them. I simply felt they were ideas that needed be written.**

**Now, however, thanks to the inspiration of music, I have a plot for both! And a good sub plot for Team Phantom!**

**Team Phantom will probably end up my longest story. Because it will involve three of the most Epic and powerful ghosts in the DP universe. It shouldn't be too hard for you to figure out who I'm talking about.**

**And Return of Phantom now has it's own plot, bad guys included! As a matter of fact, they will be shown in the next update for it!**

**However, the flood of ideas into my poor head is leaving its mark.**

**Therefore, I am requesting a fellow Fanfiction goers help to make sure the plots stay on the straight and narrow, and that the chapters reveal a decent amount without revealing too much.**

**I will only take the help of people who have written some works on Fanfiction themselves. If you're interested, tell me, in a review, in a PM, It doesn't matter one way or the other to me. If I like the looks of the works you've done, I'll consider you. I can't make any promises.**

**Anyway, I think you're tired of me talking. On with the story! And say hello to the insanity that is a press conference held by three Halfas!**

* * *

Maddie and Jack Fenton both turned to each other with their mouths slightly open.

This was not good news. Danny Phantom had allies now. It used to be just him, and he was bad enough. He was far and away more powerful than most ghosts. And if his two new allies had a similar power level... They were in trouble.

Still... They couldn't possibly be invincible. Even Phantom could tire, weaken. True, it took one hell of an opponent to tire him out. But there was his seemingly arch nemesis, the Red Huntress. If they could get her on their side, they might stand a chance.

Especially if they laid traps at the Town Square for Friday. All of them equipped with ecto detection gear and software, to ensure they wouldn't accidentally attack any humans, of course.

* * *

"All right," Ember said disgustedly after the large group found themselves once more in the ghost zone. "All I want to know is whose idea it was to attack in the first place."

"Walker's," Skulker instantly said, pointing the proverbial and literal finger of blame straight at the all-white ghost warden. Ember turned to him, hair blazing upon her head rather like the Crown of Fire. It was clear that she was not happy.

"Idiot," she spat out at him. "You were supposed to keep up to date with everything going on in the human world. Now his friends are Halfas as well! We don't stand a chance!" Walker noticeably bristled at the criticism.

"Be careful what you say, punk," he uttered with an ominous growl. "I still have my guards ready nearby. You can't possibly fight against all of them." Ember quietened, but was quite obviously still fuming.

"Still, I'm afraid I have to agree with Ember," Skulker spat out at the Jailer. "There is now no way we're ever going to defeat all three of them. We'd need to release Pariah Dark, and there's no way any of us are going to do that!" Walker paused at this.

"Hmmm... I just remembered something... I might need to call a meeting soon, be ready. I just realised I need to check something..."

Ember raised an eyebrow as Walker flew off. "Why do I get the feeling he's not telling us something?" she asked the others.

"Because he isn't," Spectra said, staring unblinkingly at Walker's barely visible back. "I can tell. Keeping secrets is something that only a few aren't bothered by, and Walker's not one of them, surprisingly. It's bothering him, and I can tell when something's bothering someone."

They all paused at this. They all knew it was true. Spectra fed off all forms of misery. If she said that Walker was keeping a secret, he was keeping a secret.

"We'll wait until he calls for us," Skulker said. "If he doesn't... We'll go looking for him to get our answers."

They nodded.

* * *

Danny grinned at Tucker and Sam as they all hovered above Amity Park, all of them under their own power.

He had to admit, he was completely happy with Sam and Tucker's decision to become Halfas. He wouldn't have stood a chance against the attack Skulker and the others had launched. Not having to hold onto them so they could experience flying was an added bonus.

Plus, not that he was EVER going to say this out aloud; Sam looked _awesome_ in her ghost form.

But he couldn't help himself feeling nervous about their press conference plan. He'd gotten by perfectly well before. And there was another issue with it, he realised.

"Uh, guys? I appreciate how you're trying to help me with this press conference thing and all... But won't it make us a really easy target for my Mum and Dad?"

Sam stopped dead. She'd completely forgotten about Danny's parents. There was no way they were going to let two new ghosts join Danny Phantom as allies. They'd instantly think he was gathering forces to take over the town with. _'As if he'd need us,'_ she thought. _'He could take over this town on his own if he really felt like it. But I can't believe I forgot about them!'_

She stayed floating for a moment, noticing absently that Tucker was doing the exact same thing. He spoke suddenly, stirring her out of her internal self-berating.

"I think we might be able to stop them from being a problem. We'd be the main problem, even if there was another ghost attack, right?"

"How'd you get that?" Sam asked quizzically. Tucker rolled his eyes.

"Well Danny's a hell of a lot more powerful than any other ghost that shows up around here. They'd probably be worried that we're going to be about as powerful as you." Sam conceded he had a point, and gestured for him to continue.

"Anyway, if we're going to be the main problem, and if they think we're going to be as powerful as you, my bet is that they're going to lay traps in Town Square for Friday. And since we're going to be the ones they'll want to catch/rip-apart-molecule-by-molecule, they're going to be tuned into our ecto-signature or programmed to ignore all other ecto-signatures, something like that."

"Yeah," Danny interjected. "But how does that help us?"

"Did you forget who I am? If anyone would ever be able to re-program their stuff to ignore us, it's me! All we have to do is get our hands on the traps and I'll reprogram them to ignore our ecto-signature, instead of attacking it."

Sam nodded, thinking about it and liking the idea more and more.

_

* * *

_

Next day

(Monday)

Jazz hummed happily to herself as she skipped lightly down the halls of Casper High. Her antics did nothing more than raise one or two eyebrows from people who weren't quite used to seeing her chirpy in the morning. Jazz was known as a cheerful person, but in the mornings she was like everyone else: grumpy to be awake.

Not today. Today she was happy that Danny had clearly gotten over all his problems with Sam and Tucker helping him in ghost fights. She was happy that they were taking steps to clear Danny's name and establish themselves as the heroes they were.

She was happy that they were alive. If they hadn't caught the ghosts by surprise yesterday...

She mentally slapped herself.

Stop that, she told herself. They're ok, stop worrying about them. You're supposed to be happy today, not miserable.

Having regained control of her unruly thoughts, she continued skipping.

She couldn't help but grin as she heard the gossip drifting through the halls.

"I wonder why Phantom's called for a press conference?"

"Who knows? We'll find out on Friday."

"I don't want to wait until Friday!"

"Neither! I mean, who are those other ghosts with him?"

"I dunno... Didn't he say their names at one point?"

"Ugh, if he did, I can't remember. How shameful is that?"

"I'm wondering if Phantom and the girl go out, they look like they get along well."

"Ha, if they do, a lot of girls around here are going to be heartbroken. Especially Paulina! Won't that be satisfying to watch?"

"Hmmm... I didn't think of that. I hope they do! If anyone stands a chance of knocking Paulina off her throne, it's that ghost girl!"

Jazz paused. 'Strange,' she thought. 'I thought everyone in the school liked Paulina. How did I not realise that were bound to be girls and boys who didn't like her?'

"Yeah, I mean, she's totally hot, but she's such a bitch!"

"Tell me about it. I mean, she literally pushed me into the fountain once, and didn't even notice at all!"

'Ah,' Jazz thought, her grin beginning to appear once more. 'Now I see why these people don't like her. They're the 'upper level' loser crowd. Not so low on the high school food chain as Danny and the others, but only just. Of course they'd hate her. They wouldn't be influenced by her so called beautifulness; they'd only see her cruelty. I might have to look into this a little... This could have a fairly drastic effect on the schools social system if that group somehow became dominant...'

Lost in her thoughts of analysing the entire school mentality, she continued to her class.

* * *

Danny, Sam and Tucker entered school in their usual fashion: Sam in the middle, Danny to the left, Tucker to the right, arms intertwined.

They'd started doing it about a year after Danny got his ghost powers. Sam had said it was a good way to show that they were friends, and they were going to stay that way. Danny and Tucker had agreed, and they hadn't failed to do it yet. Except on occasions when Danny was fighting a ghost or one of them was sick. But then, there wasn't terribly much they could do about those situations.

They walked quickly to their lockers, snickering to themselves as they listened to the rumours flying about the school. Really, they got more and more ridiculous. Danny couldn't help himself when he heard the one that said all three of them were going to pledge themselves into service of the mayor. It was such an unlikely thing that he just started laughing. Sam and Tucker were having difficulty keeping their laughter in check as well. Sam's shoulders were heaving like an ocean wave.

They saw Jazz off in the distance; hand over her mouth, indicating she was having much the same difficulty.

Sam separated from the other two when the bell rang, walking off to her Extension English, Danny and Tucker heading off to a Study Period.

She was quite frankly amazed at how inventive her schoolmates had suddenly become with the announcement of the upcoming press conference.

"I'm still not sure whether or not he's good..."

"Come on, he's totally good! He saved us from the Ghost King! That's, like, instant proof that he's good!"

"I actually disagree with you there. He could have just been protecting himself. And remember, he stole that Ecto-Skeleton thing from the Fentons. I don't seem to recall him returning it, do you? Myself, I find it a little terror-inspiring, knowing that he has access to a suit that increases his natural abilities a hundredfold."

"Come off it, he's probably saving it, just in case another really big ghost comes along. If I had it, I'd only use it against really strong ghosts, otherwise they'd eventually find a weakness!"

Yet another conversation was discussing what powers the two new ghostly heroes had.

"I think they'll have a few different ones... Like, they'll have the energy blasts, and the shields, but they won't have Phantom's ice powers."

"Nah, I reckon they're all gonna have the same sorta things."

"Why would they," one voice objected rather stridently. "You know ghosts have different powers! There's that weird genie one, the technology one, and that gangster biker guy."

"I'm not even sure that guy's a ghost! He looks way too human!"

"Dude, I've seen him ride his bike straight up a building. You know; something with walls at a ninety degree angle to the ground!"

"Aaaahhhh... Ok, now I'm willing to admit that he's a ghost. Hey, do you reckon that girl ghost is going out with Phantom or something? 'Cos they've both got really similar outfits."

That got Sam's attention like nobody's business. Naturally enough. She looked at the gossipers, trying to determine whether or not they were in her next class.

_Excellent,_ she though happily. _They're Extension students. Looks like I'll be able to keep up with the new gossip on ghost boy and ghost gal. This actually sounds like something I'd be interested in._

* * *

When the class ended an hour later, Sam was blushing brightly as she left. She had hung back to avoid revealing the fact to her classmates. She had a reputation after all.

The various theories about her and Danny's ghost form dating each other had almost been too much for her to bear at one point. It was only because of her phenomenal self control that she hadn't slapped her hands to her cheeks to conceal the blush on them. She truthfully didn't mind the idea of dating Danny, to be honest; and only kept up the pretence of liking him just as a friend because he never showed that he liked her back. If he ever changed, she'd be more than happy to take the chance.

He was, after all, far and away the politest teenage boy she'd ever heard of. Apart from when he was fighting ghosts. If that wasn't worth some serious brownie points in his favour, she didn't know what was.

_

* * *

_

Sometime between Monday and Thursday afternoon.

Vlad Masters frowned as he watched another news report about the upcoming press conference with Danny Phantom and his as yet un-named friends.

It was... mildly infuriating, that there were now more Halfas... and yet, less. For Vlad could no longer count himself among that preciously small number.

He had been powerful as a Halfa, but not even he could possibly fight Fright Knight and The Behemoth, as well as several other ghosts, without warning.

He did not know the other ghosts who had assisted in the assault. Nor did he know quite why Fright Knight had broken his oath of fealty to him. True, he had broken his oath to Pariah Dark, but Vlad had been a rising force in the Ghost Zone. There was no one who could possibly offer more power than himself.

What Vlad Masters did know, though, was why they had attacked.

Somehow, they had found out about his recent modification of the regular ghost gauntlets. Somehow, they had known how to operate them. Somehow, they had removed and destroyed Plasmius, Master's ghost half.

It was... psychologically devastating, or would be to the regular person. He had, after all, lost half of his personality with the destruction of his ghost half.

It was only now that he realised... being a halfa, and having the ghost half removed... didn't make you fully human...

It only made you... _half_.

He wouldn't give up completely though. He was Vlad Master now, wholly and entirely.

Plasmius had no influence over the Ghost zone anymore. Masters was not feared... but he could be. He had designed more anti ghost technology than Jack and Maddie had ever conceived. His weapons were far more powerful. He would find a way to have revenge on the Fright Knight. If possible, a way to destroy Danny. Then, and only then, would he willingly surrender to utter normalcy as a human.

He was Plasmius no longer.

It was time for Masters to earn his name.

_

* * *

_

Thursday Afternoon

"Well Tucker? How's the reprogramming going?" Sam asked as she eagerly looked over said boy's shoulder, in an attempt to decipher what was on the screen of his PDA.

"I'm almost done," he muttered in reply. "I'm just looking through a few bits of the original program... and I'm a little worried."

"Why?" interjected Danny as he phased down into the lab from upstairs. "It can't be that you're having trouble with reprogramming it; so what's troubling you?"

"The original program, that's what. Or rather, what's taken precedence over the original program, not to mention the design..."

Sam and Danny simply looked at each other for a moment, befuddled, before simultaneously complaining, "English, Tucker; English."

He sighed.

"Ok, Danny's parents designed these weapons to incapacitate us, right? They also put in programming to ensure that they stopped firing when our ecto-signatures became too weak. They don't want us to... well, whatever it is ghosts do when they get too injured."

"They dissipate," Danny said. "I asked Ghost Writer about it once. Apparently ghosts are ectoplasm held together by willpower and memories. Ex human ghosts, at any rate."

"Whatever. But the point is, these things weren't designed to excessively harm us."

"And?"

"I'm finding a program that's been written right over the original, completely re directing their priorities. And the designs have been altered to back the program up."

"What do they do?"

"These things weren't meant to incapacitate us. Not after this programming was inserted. Instead, they were meant to destroy. They're instructed to fire, and keep firing until our ecto-signature is completely dispersed."

* * *

"What!?" came the instantaneous cry from two throats.

"I don't know who put the program in, but I'd say it's a safe bet that whoever they are, they don't want us around."

"Did you manage to get rid of it?" Sam asked worriedly. He nodded.

"Yep. There's not a trace left in this thing as far as I can tell. And only Technus could possibly hide something from me in any form of programming. And it can't be him behind this, because he hasn't shown his sorry hide outside the Ghost Zone since Sunday."

"That's a relief," Danny muttered, sinking to the ground, rubbing his eyes. "It would be my kind of luck to have lethal traps waiting for us even after we thought we'd gotten rid of them." Sam laughed weakly.

"Yeah, well, that's life. Our lives, anyway."

* * *

As soon as Tucker was completely done with reprogramming the traps, they all three of them went ghost, and flew away from Danny's home.

They all felt the need to get away from anti ghost equipment. Completely natural.

"So," Danny started. "Where're we going? Off to the park? Somewhere else?'

Sam grinned, changing direction. "Somewhere else," she said.

Danny and Tucker whistled as they looked over a crystal clear lake.

This definitely wasn't Lake Eerie. Wherever it was, though; had to be one of the most scenic places Danny had ever seen in his life.

The lake itself was almost perfectly circular. There were only two places Danny could see that threw out the regularity of the lake. There were gentle rolling hills surrounding half of the lake, with light woods around the rest.

"How'd you find this place, Sam? Tucker asked, his eyes still riveted on the scenery.

"You didn't think I spent all of the time since becoming a Halfa just toying around with ecto blasts, did you?" she asked cheekily. "I found this place last Friday. I needed to find somewhere way away from my parents, where I could just do what I wanted. I've looked for this place on a map, but I haven't found it." She shrugged.

"I can't imagine why," Danny said breathlessly. "You'd think someone besides us would have found it by now."

"You would. But I don't think anyone has. I haven't seen anything that says someone else has been here recently."

Danny shook his head, saying, "That's just plain weird. How can this place possibly still be practically unknown?"

"I don't know," said Tucker. "Nor do I care. What I do care about is that this is the perfect spot to relax, and wait 'till I'm tired enough to sleep. Tomorrow's going to be a big day." Danny couldn't repress a slight grimace at this.

Sam caught the motion, and put her hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, don't worry. We're Halfas. We're more powerful than all but the really strong ghosts. What on Earth could possibly threaten us?"

"I don't think I want to know."

Sam couldn't help but agree. Some questions were, after all, better left unanswered.

* * *

"Today is the day, ladies and gentlemen. Friday has arrived and, barring all unforeseen circumstances, the press conference called for by none other than Danny Phantom will be starting in little over half an hour! This could well be the most momentous day in Amity Park history!"

* * *

"Damn straight it will be..." a blazing red and black suited figure emerged from a dark alleyway, listening to and watching the live news broadcast. "Most momentous day ever in Amity Park... Danny Phantom is finally destroyed, along with his new friends!"

* * *

The three teenage Halfas hovered nervously above the gigantic crowd; watching as Antonio Sanchez permitted entry to the Town Hall one journalist at a time, checking that they were actually the sort of people they wanted present.

They couldn't have the entire place crowded with fans, after all. They wanted semi intelligent questions at the very least, not requests for them to marry someone.

"Well," Sam said. "At least Mr Sanchez is doing a good job of filtering out all the fans."

"Tell me about it," Danny muttered. "I would say the last thing we need is crazy fans, but we've already got them. And besides, the absolute last thing we need is Vlad showing up."

Tucker shuddered. "Dude, he said. "Don't even think that. You know what your luck was like in the first place. Don't tempt Mr Murphy." Danny mimed locking his lips together and throwing away the key, causing Sam to laugh gently.

Danny sighed.

"Well?" he asked. "Time to go down, do you reckon?" Sam nodded. Tucker hesitated for a moment, then added his silent agreement.

"Down we go then."

* * *

Antonio Sanchez sized up the person in front of him, and shook his head. The credentials weren't in any way convincing. "Next," he called out.

The man would have protested, but Antonio was quite a large man. Protesting against what he said was a bad idea.

He almost had a fit when he saw who walked up next.

It was the Fentons, minus their son. What was his name? Ah well, it wasn't important.

But the Fentons!? Here?

He checked back to the paper that the girl had handed to him.

What on Earth? They wanted the Fentons to be admitted into the conference? Were they crazy?

Still it was their afterlife. He waved them through.

* * *

The Red Huntress watched her wrist screen intensely, as the three ecto-signatures she was tracking descended into the building.

'Perfect,' she thought.

It was time to test out her suit from Technus just that little bit more... It was made from ghost technology, so surely it would be able to go intangible. She'd simply never tried it before. Blasting was as effective, and she didn't really care about the buildings that got damaged from their fights. She did care about the people, but it was their fault for not running straight away.

Honestly, she would've thought that, by now, everyone would know that it's a damn good idea to run away from a ghost fight, especially when Phantom was involved.

But regardless, the main focus for her was today.

She dematerialised her suit.

After all, Phantom didn't know who she was. If he was offering up answers on a silver platter, she might as well get some. After all, there were a few questions she wanted answered.

It was nice of her dad to sign a note asking the Mayor to let her attend.

* * *

Antonio looked at the note handed to him, starting a bit when he saw who it was signed by.

"Ah, Valerie; isn't it?" he asked politely, indicating she was free to go in.

"Yes sir. Nice to meet you."

Her grin as she entered was almost feral.

* * *

It was time.

The three of them were standing, fully visible, behind the podium, simply waiting for Antonio to be ready to open the press conference.

They were talking quietly among themselves. Every now and then one of them would laugh slightly, not loud enough to be picked up by the crowd, but their shoulders would shake enough to reveal the action to anyone who was watching.

Jack and Maddie were watching, all right. Oh, they were watching.

* * *

Danny was twitching ever so slightly, about once every fifteen seconds.

He felt that he could hardly be blamed for doing so. His parents, they had foreseen.

VALERIE, on the other hand, they had completely forgotten about.

'Now how did I manage to do that?' Danny asked himself. 'I mean, she only tries to hunt me once a week, you know, not something all that memorable... NOT!'

He nearly jumped out of his skin when Tucker said quietly, "Well, there's one person we forgot about."

"Tell me about it," Danny agreed. "I still don't understand how I did that."

"Well," Sam interjected. "Look on the bright side. We'll know when to expect her, because she'll have to leave to change into her suit. Tucker, keep an eye on her. When she leaves, let us know straight away. She won't be expecting us to be ready for her."

"There's something in that," Tucker said, turning to face the crowd.

* * *

Antonio climbed onto the stage, accompanied by a tremendous hush as everyone realised he was about to open the press conference.

He stepped up to the podium, clearing his throat.

"Good morning," he started. "You all know me. You should all know what happened last Sunday. These three," he waved behind him to the three ghosts. "Presented me with a request for a press conference. They have not told me why. They did, however, lay down some rules for this press conference to follow."

"Firstly, if you have a question you wish to ask, you will raise your hand, and they will call on you. If you ask without being called on, I will either ask you to remain quiet unless called on, or I will make you leave the building, if you insist on being a nuisance."

"Second, they have the right to leave at anytime they choose, should you not follow the rules. And it's certainly not as if you could stop them."

"Third, they will not be answering any questions about when they were alive. They will present all information regarding that in their introductions as they feel. If they do not answer something you wish to know, you will simply have to deal with it."

"They also reserve the right to not answer any questions about their personal lives. And if there are any fans in here," he started glaring. "If you ask for any of them to either go out with you, or marry you, or some such nonsense, I WILL have you thrown out of the building."

"I believe that's all. Danny Phantom. The stage is yours."

* * *

He stepped forward.

Danny gulped nervously. It was a really big crowd in front of him and, like any normal teenager, he hated public speaking.

"well," he said. "Hi. I think you should all know me. But according to my friend over there," he jerked his thumb at Sam. "I should still introduce myself. My name's Danny Phantom. I'm a ghost, as you've all seen. I was best friends with these two," he indicated behind himself again. "For most of my life, while I was alive. It was a bit of a surprise when they came back as ghosts, but I'm not complaining." He smiled. "It makes my job a lot easier." There was a light laugh from most of the crowd.

"I was fourteen when I died. None of us are going to say how. It's considered rude in the Ghost Zone to ask, so please don't. Apart from that," he shrugged his shoulders. "Not much else to say."

He stepped back, Sam stepping up to take his place.

"Hello to you all," she said in a smooth, calm voice. She'd been to dozens of her parents parties before, so this was no problem to her. "I'm afraid you'll have to excuse us for a lack of originality, but my name is Sam Phantom. Sam isn't actually my real first name. That would be Elizabeth," she shuddered as she uttered the hated name. "But I didn't like that while I was alive, so we started using my middle name, which is Samantha, and then we shortened it to Sam, because I started hating long names." She smiled slightly. "It kind of annoyed these two for a while. They didn't think I could make up my mind what I wanted to be called." There was another wave of light laughter from the crowd.

"I was more into the goth kind of culture when I was alive, but I've sorta gone off it. Liking ghosts isn't quite so much fun when your best friend risks his afterlife to stop them." She shrugged her shoulders. "I kinda miss it, but the benefits of being a ghost are awesome." She turned to Tucker. "You're up next, tech whiz." Tucker just gave her an injured look.

"I can do my own introduction, thank you very much." Sam grinned.

"Yeah," she replied. "I just thought I might as well warn them that you can speak technical." She looked back at the crowd. "And I mean it, he can talk REALLY technical when he wants to."

"But I don't want to NOW, do I?"

"Fair point," Sam admitted.

"Well, as miss ex goth revealed, my name's Tucker. Tucker Phantom, just to round the whole group off. Like Sam, it isn't actually my first name. In fact, it's not even my name, it's a nickname they came up with after I had dinner over at Danny's once," Tucker said.

"Basically, it was time for dinner, his mum asked us all to 'tuck in', and according to these two, I really did 'tuck in'. It's been my nickname ever since."

"I'm an expert with most sorts of tech. If you ever have problems with anything electrical, and I happen to be nearby, feel free to ask me for help. I'll be happy to help."

He looked back at the other two.

"I think that covers the introductions, don't you?" Sam shrugged.

"Sounds good to me," Danny said. "Alright then. Fire away with your questions. We'll do our best to answer."

Instantly, several dozen hands were thrown into the air. Danny straightaway turned to the other two.

"Well?" he asked. "Any idea where to start?"

The crowd tittered once more.

"Let's just go with the front row," Sam said, pointing at the person to the farthest right of the front.

"Mr Phantom- Uh, Danny Phantom, that is, why are you and your friends defending the town against ghost attacks?"

Danny had expected this question to come up, and had an answer ready.

"Why shouldn't we? Sure, we're ghosts. But we used to be human. Just 'cos we're not human anymore doesn't mean we have to take it out on you. Besides, attacking people is just plain wrong in my book. Especially when they haven't done anything to deserve it." He pointed to the person next to the one Sam had pointed to.

"Ms Phant-"

"Just Sam thanks. The Phantom's just to make the team complete, that's all."

"Sam, then. Why is your outfit so similar to Danny's? Are there any personal reasons, or was it just chance?" Sam blinked. That was an unexpected one. She couldn't help blushing at the insinuated hint of her and Danny dating each other.

"Uh, no real reason, actually," she said. "I just liked it, that's all. Tuck, your turn."

"I think we might as well keep going down the row."

"In that case, a question for the three of you. Why, when all other ghosts are so malevolent, are you three perfectly happy to defend us? Shouldn't you be as aggressive towards us as the rest of your kin?"

There was a hush at this. The answer to this was an important one, they could tell.

"I... don't really know," Danny admitted. "All I know is that when I saw the first ghost attack, when the Lunch Lady attacked Casper High, I just felt... Angry, I guess. It didn't seem right, no matter what way I looked at it. I guess these two are kinda the same." He grinned. "It didn't really leave them much choice when their best friend was against ghost attacks. It was either turn against a friend they'd known for their entire lives, or fight with him. Next, please."

He felt that he'd given the right answer. There certainly was less tension in the air.

"I hope you don't mind my asking, but why did you lead the first ghost invasion against our city?"

And instantly the tension was back, but this time because Danny's fists had clenched, and were glowing bright green, and his eyes were bright enough to be headlights.

"That," he growled out. "Wasn't me. That was an enemy of mine, called Walker. He's a big sherrif ghost with a skull for a head. He's dressed almost completely in white. He was one of the ghosts that attacked last Sunday." He closed his eyes, struggling to relax against the accusation thrown at him. He opened them once more only when he was sure he wasn't going to lose his cool.

"None of you would have seen him before that I don't think," he continued. "Because he's smarter than the other ghosts. He sorta stays in the background, out of sight. He only reveals himself when he feels he has the upper hand completely. Of course," Danny grinned. "He never has really. Otherwise, I'd be spending about a thousand years in his jail for some fake crime. That's something he's fond of. Making up rules on the spot so he can arrest someone." He pointed to the next person.

"What are your various powers? And could you demonstrate them?"

"Well, there are the basics, flight, intangibility, and invisibility," he said, demonstrating them each as he said them.

"Then the more advanced ones, like these ectoplasmic energy blasts," he help up his hand with a glowing green orb in it. "I don't think you want me firing this though," he added, dissipating the energy, and then conjuring up a shield. "This is the shield I mentioned."

"I also have two other powers... One of which is cryokinesis." He created an ice cube in his hand. "Basically, I can create ice, freeze things, and make snowballs, all forms of ice."

He hesitated.

"My last power is... A bit extreme. I call it the Ghostly Wail, and I don't think you'd like me to demonstrate it. If I did, half of this building would probably be demolished in about a second. It's not the sort of thing I toy around with."

There was a brief silence after this. Most people found it slightly disturbing that he could literally level entire buildings in a few short seconds on his own.

"It's incredibly draining though. I can only just pull it off twice in a row without resting. After that, I'm out of the game for about the next two hours." The crowd seemed to let go a breath it had been holding.

"I hope you don't mind my asking Danny, but are you and Sam going out?"

"NO!" came the instant cry from two separate throats. The owners of said throats were blushing redder than Valerie's old suit, and were determinedly looking everywhere but at each other.

"Don't listen to them," Tucker said with a grin. "They may not be going out, but I'm betting it won't be too long!" A large wave of laughter rippled through the crowd.

Danny simply charged up an ecto blast and pointed it at Tucker's face.

"Who's the more experienced ghost, Tucker?" he asked.

"I surrender."

"Good."

* * *

The next two hours passed in a bizarre fashion. The questions ranged from who was the toughest ghost Danny had ever fought, to who they thought was going to win the Melbourne Cup over in Australia.

Danny hadn't even HEARD of the Melbourne Cup!

After what seemed to be the last question had been asked, Tucker jabbed Danny in the side.

He looked sidelong at his long time friend to find that he was staring straight at the door. It didn't take Danny all that long to figure out what he meant.

Valerie had left. Which meant that any moment now, she'd come screaming through that door, all guns blazing.

'Shit,' he thought. He could only hope that Sam also knew.

"Well, if that's all, and no one has any more questions, we will be leaving."

"Not so fast, Phantom! You and you're friends aren't leaving this building!" Valerie yelled as she descended down _through_ the roof.

'What the?' Danny thought. 'She can go intangible now!?'

"Tucker, Sam, now!"

Immediately, all three of them fired ecto blasts at Valerie, in an attempt to distract her.

"Huntress!" Danny yelled out. "Are you insane? You're going to get people hurt!"

"No I won't. I'm much too good a shot for that." With that, she opened fire on the trio.

All three of them put up a shield, wondering how on Earth they were going to get out of here without hurting someone.

"Everyone!" Danny yelled. "Get out of here! Now!"

"Please, do," Valerie added. "It'll make my job a lot easier!"

"Fentons! Now!"

Bizarre devices popped up around the room, electricity crackling around parts that looked like they meant business. Several looked like ecto net launchers, while others seemed to be a turret form of the Fenton Crammer. All of which would have guaranteed the trios utter defeat.

* * *

Were it not for the fact they weren't doing anything.

Oh, sure, they were sparking. But they weren't swinging around to point at them.

"What!?" both Jack and Maddie cried out.

"Terribly sorry, Mr and Mrs Fenton, but we were one step ahead of you!" Tucker called out. "We knew you'd probably try and catch us while we were here, so we snuck into your lab and calibrated those traps to ignore our ecto signatures!"

"No!" Valerie screamed. "Those were my only guarantee of victory against you three! The only thing that could make this worse is if my Glider malfunctioned!"

And Sam's hands suddenly pointed straight at the Glider, no longer glowing with the dark purple of her regular ecto energy, but a purple verging onto the colour red.

A faint glow of the same colour surrounded the Glider, and it began to lose altitude, alarms going off in Valerie's helmet, alerting her to a total system failure of the piece of equipment.

"Impossible!" Valerie cried out in despair. "This thing doesn't malfunction! Ever!"

Danny, Sam, and Tucker didn't waste any time wondering about it. All they knew was that Valerie could no longer chase them in the sky.

All three of them flew off as quickly as they could, turning invisible and intangible.

* * *

**Whew! This one was huge!**

**Sam's unique power is revealed, in a rather unique way! She's similar to Shadow. She can cause bad luck, sometimes the worst luck imaginable! Later on, when her powers develop, she'll be able to place 'curses' on people. Basically, it's a a blast of her bad luck ability, that lasts. It can last for as little as an hour, to over a week! If you get with one of them, I wouldn't be doing any betting for quite some time!**

**Poor Vlad. He's a Halfa no more. But he shall not give up! Masters shall earn his name! He will have revenge! (This is the sub plot I mentioned at the beginning. Vlad's plan to get revenge. It's gonna be awesome... I think.)**

**I hope you enjoyed this, I truly do! Because I had great fun writing it! It was kinda scary! This thing was 15 pages long!**

**Oh, and from now on, I will respond to all reviews if they have a way to be responded to! Such as a question, or a suggestion.**

**I think that's everything...**

**Oh no, wait!**

**Can anyone guess why Fright Knight turned on Vlad? I reckon I came up with a truly great reason! If someone gets it, I will be absolutely flabbergasted!**

**Ok, NOW that's all.**

**Cya!**

**-Eidorian999**


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